In a world full of podcasters talking about nonsense… you will find us there. However, we will spare each other the degradation of having to hear your own voice, and instead write it out. For $89.99, we will send you the raw voice memo! You can hear Becky tapping her phone to make sure the screen doesn’t go dark during the recording, along with Alisia hurrying everyone up because her Doordasher was en route.
Becky: Recording for Sunbleacht. I’m very excited. First question, all right. Ladies, how would you describe your sense of style?
Alisia: Canvas-y. Black, white, brown, and beige. It’s not very “out there,” it’s basic in color. I like to throw on a fun jacket or a fun purse which I feel will spice things up – or maybe a fun shoe – a big shoe. I like my loafers. I love my fur coat, too. It’s so Russian, and I feel my best when I put my fur coat on – it just makes every outfit look better.
Graciela: I’m never good at describing my personal style. I mainly own more basic styles – lots of black and white colors.
Alisia: Chic.
Graciela: I just always want to buy lace tops that seem so impractical to wear because they’re see-through, but I just love them,so I get them. I saw this one that’s basically a lingerie top, and I haven’t really figured out how to wear it – but I will figure it out one day. Last year, I was unpacking all of my winter stuff that I had in storage in New York, and I had like 5 million coats. Because when it’s cold, that’s my outfit. I was like, “ohh…” but I still buy more.
Alisia: Nothing’s wrong with that.
Becky: Beachy and colorful. I don’t like polyester. I think polyester looks like plastic. I like big statement sunglasses and even my big tortoiseshell glasses that I wear to class. I love pink, purple, and blue. For shoes I like heels.
Alisia: I’ve noticed, that in comparison to people our age – and just other people I see out and about period – the three of us are always in high heels. Usually very high heels. I love my platform high pumps. I’ve noticed that we’re always taller than everyone whenever we’re out.
Graciela: One time, I wore my taller boots out and I literally was a foot taller than everyone.
Alisia: When we were at the Mardi Gras ball, I wore one heel and one fracture boot which was a crazy choice to make. Nobody saw the heel under my dress, but I wore it anyway.
Becky: It feels great to be so tall.
Alisia: I see Becky in a cotton skirt, like a little flowy skirt. There’s a photo of you in that blue and white striped skirt [in Miami] If I had to pick one item of clothing that describes your style, it’d be that.
Becky: Okay, second question. What does your future home look like?
Alisia: A lot of art – like a ridiculous amount of art. Eclectic art. Darker colors on the inside because my [New Orleans] house is very dark on the inside, and I love it. Lots of big windows. No overhead white lighting – that’s a strict policy anywhere I live. I’ll find a cool interior designer. My dad’s good friend is an interior designer: I like his style, he likes dark colors too. Again, a lot of art, for sure. I’m going to be spending most of my money on art, buying from artists living in New York. I want to buy from people I know, people I’ve met that I think are interesting. We’ve got to support the living artists. I’ll make a painting or two for my house. I want an art studio. In an ideal world I live above my art studio. Also I want to live in the East Village, with a Central Park view, which is impossible in the East Village.
Becky: By the time you’ll own a home there’ll be artificial-intelligence generated screens to give you a view of Central Park, don’t worry. Graciela, what about you?
Graciela: I have multiple homes, naturally.
Becky: Real.
Graciela: I have a lot of stuff saved on Pinterest. I want to have a nice kitchen – I also want a big countertop – because I love baking and I want to cook. I feel like every time I’ve had a kitchen in New York, there’s been some kind of issue, so I haven’t been able to cook. I also need a big closet, and I’d also like a library for all of my books and a little reading nook. I’d have a rooftop or balcony with a nice view. I saw this forest green couch that I had an obsession with in some home goods store that I’d love to have.
Becky: I have a lot of ideas, detailed down to the very last door and sink handle. Nautical beach theme. I wanna live on the beach in New York. And hopefully a nice vacation home in the south of France overlooking the Mediterranean. I’d have a tennis court and a small plunge pool — instead of a huge swimming pool — because I wouldn’t really use it that much since the ocean would be right there. I would rather have space for the tennis court. Mediterranean style, red tile roof, stucco, nice white shutters. I want a fresco in my foyer and a curved organic-form staircase. Bedroom with a nice balcony that I can have a coffee on. For the living room I want an open concept, airy, light, with fun accents like pink and purple and blue. Ooh, I want a le roche-bobois bubble couch. In terms of art, I want a marble sculpture of me in my house. For the sake of keeping it PG-13, I’ll redact further information about this sculpture.
Alisia: Ooh yes, I want one too.
Graciela: Yes!
Becky: We could get a group figure of us.
Alisia: Maybe Becky can get a bronze one and then I’ll make a casting and then you can melt yours to make coins. I’ll just carry around melted gold in my purse.
Becky: My IRL Bitcoin. Or I can use your melted gold to make a really great crowbar to defend myself with on the subway in New York.
We digress to discuss our former hostile and …clean… living conditions.
Alisia: What’s wrong with rice in the sink? Leaving the oven on overnight four different times?
Becky: There is nothing wrong with flakes of fried egg and ketchup stains on the stove burner.
Becky, quickly because Alisia has motioned that the door dasher is a few minutes away: Okay, third question. What does the perfect date look like for you two?
Alisia: We go and we sit at a cool restaurant and I have about three pornstar martinis. And he really wants to hear what I have to say about art and about things I’m interested in. And then we walk around after and we get dessert somewhere. I really want to be somewhere cool, with a good scene of people, you know, like Fanelli or Lucien. Or Mari Vanna so I can show him my culture. Potatoes, you know.
Becky: You wouldn’t be dating a Russian guy?
Alisia, in a Russian accent: Maybe. Potato, big important.
Alisia: After, he would take me somewhere cool and he’d have a table just for the two of us. Graciela?
Graciela: He would definitely be the one to pay.
Alisia: Non-negotiable.
Graciela: I feel like I want to do something fun together. I’d want him to decide for us, so he has to be the one to come up with that.
Becky: OK, here’s my idea: we go to Washington Square Park and we throw raw eggs at the skaters and also the protesters. Then we are approached by a podcaster. I am canceled online. The New York Post writes an article about me the next day. We go to a comedy club. I interrupt the comedian because at this point I’ve also had three drinks. Then we go to Bobst.
Alisia: Oh, it gets worse.
Becky: I mansplain Celtic mythology to him.
Graciela: How is he getting into Bobst?
Becky: I sneak him in under the guise that he’s a visiting professor, he has to make a topic up on the spot, that’s the second test.
Alisia: Is he getting a second date?
Becky: There’s no one else who will throw eggs at people in Washington Square Park with him.
Alisia’s Doordash order has arrived: we break so that we can clear a plate of fruit and Nutella.
To answer New York City’s most recently asked question, “where has Sunbleacht gone,” we’ve gone to London and Florence. Forever.
Just kidding. It was bittersweet to leave NYC and hop over the pond, and we’ve been talking about the things that we will miss the most. Those conversations spiraled into the stories you’re about to read, discussing our favorite memories from the past 365 days.
Becky
A night out always starts off well when Alisia or Graciela’s got a new item of clothing to show off to me. That alone takes up at least 10 minutes of conversation. In this case, it was Alisia’s vintage Ralph Lauren Rudyard-Kipling Jungle-book inspired sweater.
We kicked off the festivities (every weekend was a special feast day, much like medieval peasants had, except we were teen girls with havoc to wreak and an itch in our hearts to dance) at Cafe Select, where Nice Jewish Boys and Italian Stallions alike chowed down on the smelliest cheese fondue that had ever had the displeasure of gracing my nostrils. Seriously, it was like foot-and-mouth disease had been made into a culinary specialty. We discussed Alisia’s camp stories, delved a bit into psychology (the topic du jour was schizophrenia, if I remembered correctly — coincidentally, a disorder that shared its name with a current popular baby name amongst the carnivore-only dieting types), and shots were purchased for each of us by a self-reported owner of a local well-heeled hotel (I chose to suspend my disbelief about whether he was telling the truth or not).
I achieved my favorite photo of Alisia and Graciela to date: the two of them sipping on overfilled cosmos like cats lapping up milk from saucers. We returned to our Broome Street den of sins and hedonism, where we celebrated the name-day, Central European style, of Rebucci, Grucci, and Alucci — our evil alter egos — and commemorated this world-changing anniversary by scrawling our names on little puzzle-piece Post-It notes. Just like how the Vikings baptized their young, I’ve read.
After a merry skip, hop, and jump to Paul’s, we secured our spot on the dance floor, twirling around to anachronistically combined Morrissey and Kesha like little gremlins possessed by the ghosts of Studio 54. A friendly offer for a cigarette led the three of us to a Gramercy afterparty, where I was thrilled to discover a curved spiral staircase, ostensibly leading to a damsel in distress locked away in a tower. I pushed my phone toward Alisia for a quick photoshoot before I drunkenly attempted to save this supposed damsel in distress, posing in a fascinatingly weather-inappropriate outfit of a coat and open-toed espadrilles, and then, forgetting about my quest, passionately flipped through a coffee table book—much to the displeasure of the other partygoers, upon whom I had imposed a politically inappropriate Overton-window-smashing conversation.
As a favorite-night runner-up — a little sweet treat after the starring dish — here was a favorite moment of mine: the time that Alisia picked up a fair-sized tire rim off the ground on Greene Street and brought it to Paul’s Baby Grand with her as a present for the bouncers.
Graciela
It was a Saturday near the end of April in NYC when the sun was finally coming out and everyone was coming out of hibernation. I knew I wanted to avoid the SoHo crowds and with nothing else to do, I decided it was the perfect day to take a solo adventure up to Central Park. I put on my favorite red floral midi skirt and packed my bag with my journal, book, headphones, and my disposable camera that I never finished from a year ago and took the 6 train uptown.
As I entered the park, the trees were blooming and the weather was perfect. I took photos and called my mom while I walked around until I found the perfect little spot by a tree to sit down at. We chatted and my mom sent me photos of all these cute puppies she was looking to maybe get (but never did – so if you’re reading this you should still get another puppy, mom).
After hanging up I was able to put on some music and journal a bit which I so rarely end up ever actually doing. I laid down and people watched for a while and eventually decided to try out this cute cafe I found somewhat nearby. I journeyed over and prayed for seating. I was blessed with a seat inside with air conditioning to escape the heat after the walk over and was able to order a latte and a macaroon.
Right as I finished off my coffee and was heading back out, I received a text from Alisia asking what I was up to and if I wanted to enjoy this beautiful day with a nice glass of champagne. And of course, what other answer is there other than yes? We had just launched the zine for Sunbleacht and we needed a proper celebration. We ended up realizing we were at completely different sides of the park, but as I walked south and she walked east we were able to perfectly meet up near one of the entrances. When Alisia walked through the park she saw there was a big crowd hanging out in Sheep Meadow. We decided to go to the nearest liquor store and each buy a bottle of champagne and go sit and drink over there. We realized we didn’t have any cups as we sat down so we just popped open our bottles, cheered to Sunbleacht and drank straight from them. We sat in the park drinking our champagne in the middle of about three different games going on (may have almost got hit by a few balls). One group even seemed to be drunkenly inventing their own game and invited us to join, but we had more fun just watching. We laughed and took silly photos till the sun started to set. Both of us had one of those moments where we were looking out at the city and almost didn’t even believe the two of us were really here, just two best friends living in New York City drinking a bottle of champagne watching a beautiful sunset in the park.
We started to head back as it was getting dark. We hid our champagne in our bags and decided to walk home. The 65 or so blocks flew by quicker than usual. By the time we were home I had my bottle, and the rest of Alisia’s, and a 7th Street burger. But although the sun had set, the night was just beginning…
Afterwards, I got mostly ready… and then maybe fell asleep for a little bit. However, revived by Alisia I was up and ready to hit the town. We spent the night at the one and only Paul’s Casablanca. We said hello to all our favorite people and danced the night away.
We ended up back home before we realized we needed to finish the night the correct way with Champion Pizza. Alisia grabbed her film camera and we went just down the block to get the best pizza in the city. Champion has a button with a timer that if you hit at the exact 10 second mark you get a free cheese slice. I always try with no luck. I ordered my usual cheese slice and I started hitting the button just for fun. It was a delighted surprise when I got it right on the 10 second mark after only a couple tries. The 3 am crowd cheered loud for me and Alisia captured the epic moment on film. I savored my delicious winning slice to end my perfect NYC day.
Alisia
Like all perfect days, mine started at 1 am in Paul’s Casablanca.
While the dance floor was empty until around 2 am, Graciela and I saw no shame in being the only ones twirling for the time being. We met some other southern girls, which was a fun conversation about the NY-LA (Louisiana, not Los Angeles) pipeline. The rest of the night consisted of bouncing back and forth between chatting with our friends who work there and making up dances on the dance floor. When in doubt, I tend to hit my “toddler dance,” which I will not further elaborate on.
As tradition goes, afterwards we took a cab to Prince Street Pizza. Another friend hopped in and joined us, and while chatting in line we realized we only lived a block apart. We walked our slices towards Alphabet City and helped him carry some hefty Amazon boxes up to his apartment, where we played chess until the sun came up.
The next morning, Graciela and I decided to indulge in our favorite activity: a multihour, aimless walk. We stopped somewhere to get a smoothie and watched the high school girls remake it four separate times, which amused us for the rest of the day. The next time I went into that cafe, the girl apologized for recognizing me but not knowing my name, and then excitedly told me that it was her last day.
We started the trek up the West Side Highway. When I walk around, I usually tend to look straight ahead or down, as I’m often just autopiloting my body around the city. But I made it a goal to notice things I’d never noticed before as it was one of my last weekends in the city for nine months. My first victim was a building I’d passed by almost everyday, wondering whether or not it was a hotel. In a way that almost felt illegal, we stared into the windows from 2 blocks and a highway away, trying to make out people and furniture. From the identical positioning of furniture, we decided it was a hotel. One man opened his curtains, jumped up and down waving, and as soon as we waved back a woman came and shut the curtains. In my imagination they’d just had a conversation that went something like:
“No one can see us. Just watch,” and he started jumping and waving, but then we proved him wrong. We went on with our walk.
I told Graciela about how when I was younger and spent a lot of time in Florida, I’d try and “talk to the water.” I’d try to get the waves to be really big when it was my turn to boogie board. As a kid, this made total sense to me because I believed inanimate objects and nature could hear me and had feelings, and because I was a nice kid they would maybe help me out in my boogie boarding. I noticed many things I hadn’t before on our walk, which I really appreciated. I started to make fun of myself and annoy Graciela by telling her “I’ve been looking – but have I been SEEING?” every 15 or so minutes.
Becky was making her way into the city, and we all met up in Madison Square Park to chat about the previous night. We then walked our way back down to our apartment to change and go to St. Mark’s Place for dinner. On the way there, MyLifeAsEva walked by us. I usually try to not acknowledge famous people because that’s the way I’d like to be treated, but considering she fueled my childhood obsession with little crafts I quickly told her “I loved your videos growing up” in passing. While eating dinner, I watched Machine Gun Kelly walk by us with his guitar, but our interaction consisted of “don’t talk to me” eye contact, and I obliged. The most memorable part of the random restaurant we sat down at was its wallpaper which depicted little monochrome drawings in sexual acts.
My perfect day consisted of my regularly programmed schedule, which I spend a lot of time thinking about while I’m away.
Kiran and I met at Paul’s Casablanca in mid-November. I remember he was sitting at a table – which I believe belonged to Sophia Lamar – we recognized each other, and I sat down with him. We were immediately chatting, and both fell into a bit about how our lawyers will be in contact. I always appreciate someone who hops on an impromptu bit minutes after meeting. We had been Instagram friends, and I was a fan of his writing way before meeting him. When my friends and I decided to interview people for Sunbleacht, Kiran was the first person I suggested, and I asked him to write an article for the magazine about the appeal of nightlife: You Should be a Night Walker
AH: Tell me how you started to get into writing.
KM: I’ve always loved writing. The blog that my column and such is hosted on has been around since 2015. It was really what made me happy and excited about school. When I would come home and tell my parents [about school] I wouldn’t have much to say unless there was writing I really liked. So they kind of picked up on that, and I did writing camps – summer camps at Northwestern and UChicago when I was younger. And then I started my blog, and did it there.
AH: Do you still have your writing from when you were a kid? Do you read it?
KM: I do. It’s all private on the site, so I go back and read it sometimes. It’s funny because it’s bad. It’s bad! Because a ten year old wrote it. But, it’s funny because you can tell that I really had something to say. It was random nonsense – life updates, a movie review, moving to Chicago, just really what was going on in my life. I think I didn’t have the form down, didn’t have a good vocabulary, but you can tell there is something underneath it that wants to be said, weirdly. But I didn’t have the skill to fully bring it out.
AH: That’s really cute. What is your favorite kind of stuff to write about now?
KM: I love nightlife. I mean, that is so fun to write about. And that was one of the big joys when I started it, that people really liked reading it. Creative nonfiction is where my heart is at. A good little braided essay is a favorite of mine, and so I always have a few of those in progress that I just kind of chip away at whenever I feel inspired. That creative nonfiction thing of putting this life experience that I had in conversation with a story that someone told me, in conversation with this song that I really like, and this short story by someone. It’s just so personal but also really universal.
AH: Are you a big reader?
KM: I used to be. I think it’s hard, it’s definitely harder, with being in college. But I want to do it more. Like everyone, I buy a bunch of books and I’d start them and never finish them. I read lots of Substacks and lots of short-form stuff just because I feel like it’s more accessible and easier to read out and about. Like I’m not going to be that person who is reading a book on the train, haha, that’s not really how I want to be seen.
AH: What do you want to do with your writing? Where do you want it to go?
KM: I don’t know. I used to want to be a writer full time. When I was a kid, that’s what I would say my dream job was, and then I think, growing up, I realized that’s a really hard way to make a living. It’s not a steady income, nothing is guaranteed. And then with generative AI, I get really scared-slash-bummed out about it because this is kind of my dream job being outsourced to a machine. Now I’m thinking PR or marketing is what I’d want to do. But I’ve always said, I want to do journalism on the side. I want to do a guest essay every once in a while, or an op-ed or be a guest contributor.
AH: What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?
KM: Oh, I know this. I’m a huge perfectionist, especially when it comes to writing. I think it’s really hard for me, like most writers, to reread stuff that I’ve written later on because I’ll always think of different ways that I could have done it. Even with my column, I really have to fight that urge to edit things – like I can just click in and make a few changes and save it, and no one will know, but I want to fight that urge. But when I was in high school, there was a really nasty rumor spread about me by this girl I had this big falling out with. And I was not very self-assured to begin with, not shy, but a little timid. I was really resistant, really hesitant to fight for myself and stand up for myself. I kind of just laid down and took it for the rest of the year and that was really nasty. Luckily, I had an amazing group of friends who were just awesome and got me through. The way that I moved through that was writing. I would sit in the library during my free period and write as if I was explaining everything that was happening to someone else. And that was so healing, so cathartic, so really what I needed to push through. Then there was this literary magazine that I was a part of in high school…
AH: Me too!
KM: Wait, really, were you like a head honcho?
AH: No, I was actually the Design Editor and did the format.
KM: Makes sense. This magazine, they always put out this call for personal essays and never really got a lot, and so that was my piece. It was basically a kind of open letter to the student body. I was like, here’s what you’ve heard about me, this is what actually happened. And so it was like 25% of my college personal statement, and I pulled in stuff from those documents that I’d written and made this three page piece that just told everything that happened, in my own words. And that was my favorite – the most important thing I’ve ever written – because I just needed to say it. It was my senior year, I was about to graduate, and I had to just say it. When I reread it, it’s the one piece where I have no notes and no changes.
AH: That’s awesome, and now there’s this personal piece of you there.
KM: Yeah, I just love the idea of everyone who did me wrong reading that and being like, oh shit. Yeah. We fucked up. I got a lot of apology texts. That was another element of it. I loved having an audience and getting to tell my story in my own words in a way that was comfortable, because writing’s like second nature to me.
AH: That’s so boss.
KM: It felt amazing, it felt so good. Yeah. Seeing that in print was a really, really great moment.
AH: Has there ever been a time you didn’t like to write? Or you were just like, I can’t? Or anything you really didn’t like writing?
KM: I’ve gotten really good at when I have a writing assignment that I’m not a fan of, being able to kind of make it something that I like. Because the thing is, if I’m not interested in the thing I’m writing, it’s not going to turn out good, no matter how hard I try. I feel like around this time last year, I was a little creatively burned out. And I wanted to write because that’s how I process and think about things and engage with the world meaningfully. But I just couldn’t sit down and get words to come out. I was so stuck. And this was actually how the column started. I had a final assignment in my writing class with my writing teacher, Carley Moore, who is so cool. She’s such a good writer and such a fun teacher. I remember when she talked about our final assignment being a blog post at the beginning of the year I was like, oh, that’s going to be my shit. I’ve had this blog for like ten years, it’s going to be light work. And then the time comes around, and I have such bad writer’s block. I have no idea what to do. So I went to her office hours and I was like, I don’t know what to talk about. Then she was like, “okay, tell me what you did this weekend.” And I was like, oh… I feel like I have to self-censor here. And she said “don’t, just tell me.” And so I told her I went to this party in Brooklyn, called “The Night of a Thousand Twinks,” and if you were a twink and you came before 11, you got in for free. I just told her about my weekend and the weird shit that I had done, and she was like, “that’s what you have to write about!” And I was like, I don’t know… And she said, “everyone knows undergraduates go out, if you want to write about it, you can’t let that stop you, you should just do it.” And it was for our class blog, it wasn’t going to go anywhere, originally. I was so stuck trying to make something happen that I wasn’t even paying attention to what I actually wanted to do. And it took her pointing out how excited I got telling her about my weekend. That was really cool. She’s amazing, I love her.
AH: Tell me some more about starting the column?
KM: I had written a few essays: I wrote one about the college process – about getting rejected from Columbia, and I wrote a few [during] my first few months in New York, and then wasn’t really touching it. And then I had this blog assignment, wrote my piece, and it wasn’t called “Kiran in the City” yet, but it was called “In Defense of the Five Day Weekend.” I wrote that for my class, and part of our grade was having to workshop it. So I put it on the class page, so everyone could read it and bring their notes – and everyone loved it. And then I was telling my friends the story of how, “oh, I’m writing about us getting drunk and causing problems at nightclubs for my writing class’s final,” and they really loved that, and they wanted to read it. I had my computer and opened the Google Doc and showed them, and they passed it around and each person read a few paragraphs. Seeing how excited they got was the moment I kind of knew… because not only did I really love writing this, but also people are enjoying reading it. As a writer, it’s not often where those two things intersect – the things that you want to write are not always what people want to read. Especially now, in the modern era, what people want to read is not what’s fun to write about. And so that was really affirming seeing how my friends loved seeing themselves in writing and loved seeing it from a new perspective. So I put it on the blog. I was so nervous about it because I was thinking, I know I have family members who follow me on here and they’re just going to read this blog post about me drinking all over the city, but I was very, very cautious with it. I didn’t name drop any clubs for the longest time. I had nicknames, I would just be very vague, there were no references to alcohol or being drunk or anything. I wanted to make it really about what I am experiencing, what fun things are happening and not “oh, look how drunk my friends and I can get.” I wanted it to be tasteful and artful. And I was so nervous. And then I published it.
Then the next week, I was in limbo. I was like, I don’t know if this is going to be a thing or if it’s going to be like – a lot of things I do, in terms of writing – I’m just going to do it once when I’m really motivated, and then it’s going to fall off. And then we were at Jean’s, and I get a text from one of my friends and it said, “Kate Moss is at Paul’s Casablanca!!” So my friends and I haul ass out of Jean’s, call a cab, get to Paul’s, and lo and behold, there’s Kate Moss and Charlotte Tilbury, in their booth surrounded by security, living their best lives. So at that point, I have my phone open and I’m taking notes because I’m thinking, okay, this is going to be a thing. So yeah, I owe it all to Kate Moss and my writing teacher really.
AH: I remember waking up – I don’t think we went out that night – and everyone was saying “Kate Moss was at Paul’s!” and I was like “I should’ve gone.”
KM: It was surreal – my friend was crying because she was like, “oh my gosh, I love her so much!”
AH: I’m so jealous. Were they talking to people or were they just together?
KM: They were surrounded by security, there was no way anyone was going to get in, but just breathing their same air. My friend Elijah shared a cigarette with her, weirdly. Yeah, I don’t know how she does it, but she does it.
AH: That’s such a fun fact.
KM: Ugh, Kate Moss in the club.
AH: Tell me about your most fun club night, your most fun going out night.
KM: I have so many good ones. I think there’s one that changed the way I view nightlife. It was around this time last year, and my friend texted me and had just broken up with her boyfriend of around five years and was like, ‘no one knows, but I really need to hit the town.’ And I was like, okay, we’re going, I got you. And I was loosely talking to this guy who was hosting at the Public rooftop. I told him I’m bringing my friends, then we went and met all his friends. I always say it’s a mark of privilege to go out on a Tuesday night or Wednesday night. There are certain kinds of people who can make that work: models, artists, businessmen, students. You meet some really interesting people in that specific scene. So we met all of them, it was really fun, and obviously I’m really happy because I liked this guy. Then we go to Casa, and I just remember talking to Sophia Lamar – who was my celebrity crush at the time. Like, ex-Club Kid in the 80s, this fabulous force of nature, indie film star, model who has just done so much with her life, and built that career out of nightlife. And I remember it was one of the first times I ever talked to her because I was so intimidated by her because I was like, “fuck this woman’s like a living legend!” And I don’t want to embarrass myself and sound stupid, but I really want to talk to her. We stayed at Paul’s until close. It was one of my first times staying until four in the morning, so that was really fun – the energy gets really crazed at like 3:30, and then at like 3:50 a bunch of people will come in, and then it empties out obviously at four because they kick everyone out. They’re like, “you’re not coming to the after party?” And I was like, “the what?” We went to this one guy’s apartment in Midtown, which was – I don’t even know how to describe it – it was so eclectic and maximalist. There was a funko pop collection, there were dream catchers and insects preserved in resin on the walls, LED light strips all around, two Christmas trees, weirdly, in the middle of March. It was just so funny and weird, and we stayed up until 9 in the morning playing Mario Kart. But I think that kind of changed the way I saw nightlife – not as a pastime– but that this is like an art form for a lot of people. This is a career for a lot of people, this is so much more than just “I’m going to get drunk and be weird out on the town.” We were with this girl who’s a DJ and she DJed Lady Gaga’s sister’s bachelorette party. And then obviously the guy I was seeing who is a host and makes money doing that. Clubbing gets demonized, you know, there’s weird shit that happens in night life. There’s shady characters. There’s lots of drugs, there’s lots of alcohol and alcoholism. It’s not all great, but this was a moment where I was kind of like wait, this can be a really cool thing… and you can make such a cool community within these spaces. It’s weird to say a “formative” night out, but it was a really formative night out.
AH: I just have one more question. What is your favorite song by The Smiths? In honor of Morrissey night.
KM: “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” is good, but that one is so overplayed that I can’t say that. That one’s too popular and needs something a little more…
AH: Off the radar?
KM: Yeah. I don’t know, I like “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.” I’ve really grown to love it because of Morrissey Nite. I have my Morrissey Nite playlist on when I’m getting ready.
AH: So do I!
KM: I don’t know if it’s my favorite kind of music, but it just scratches an itch in my brain. It makes me feel so happy. “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure – when that song comes on – it’s weird because I get nostalgic for memories that I’m living. I always think about things like, “oh, in 20 years, I’m going to hear this song and I’m going to think about these nights that I spent with my friends, at my favorite club and in my favorite city in the world.” That’s going to be a really surreal experience.
AH: I’m glad we think the same.
KM: There is so much to say there, because I feel like I get really in my head about aging and growing up because it sucks! It’s not fucking fun. I hate it. When I look at old pictures of myself, I feel like I’m really self-conscious about this time – it’s so precious and it’s going away. Time is marching on, whether I want it to or not. I’m about to be in my 20s, I don’t know, those are gonna be the years. I want to make them count. I don’t want to look back and have any regrets, which is impossible, but I want to get as close as possible to that.
I’ve always idealized Miami. It seemed to me to be the land of the endless party– every hour of every day is a midsummer Friday, 5PM, all play, no work, flashy clothes, flashy cars, bikinis, palm trees. Time stays still – the leaves don’t fall off the trees.
Walking around South Beach pulled back the curtain on my fantasy. Miami is like where the excess fat trimmings of the finest cuts of meat come to sizzle. Give those fat trimmings a CoolSculpt six-pack and a car with an amplifier, and you’ve created your very own South Beacher. It wasn’t filled with drunk and rowdy spring breakers – thank you very much, men in blue of the Miami-Dade county police department, for your service – but the materialism and vanities of the New Yorkers I’ve so closely critiqued seemed to be magnified under the sun, stripping the sheep’s clothing (and, well, most of their clothing, anyway) from the flocks tanning on the beach. This seems like a harsh critique of a city that I’ve just stepped foot in for the weekend, but it’s clear, to me, that it’s steeped in American big-city culture. Maybe it’s just made more apparent by the rent-a-day exotic car dealerships that dot Collins Avenue and the ubiquitous plastic surgery disasters.
The clubs in Brickell were mobbed by twentysomethings in jeans and shirts and awkward crew cuts. The lines, we were shocked to find, were not separated by gender or by beauty. I complain about Miami’s vain streak, but I myself suffer from the same vice when situationally appropriate (or drunk). Every God-fearing American loves meritocracy until an advantage reveals itself. Case in point: in New York, they pick you out and fish you up if you’ve got pretty scales. They’ve got some deep-sea indiscriminate trawling operations at Elleven, it appears. An hour and a half later, we had barely rounded the corner of the line, and I hadn’t eavesdropped on any illicit foreign operations or drug-fueled bacchanals, and I started to grow bored.
Our first night, the girls and I shared margaritas and giggled about our hot waiter. One drink in, and we witness eight officers, emblazoned with “COUNTER-TERRORISM” logos on their bulletproof vests, making an unresisted arrest at the bar not five feet away from us.
“Damn, they patted me down at Newark because of my Juicy Couture sweatpants, but they didn’t catch the kilo of coke that guy must’ve brought in?”
My friends and I know that cats have nine lives, and if curiosity kills that cat, we’ve still got a few more left in the bank. It’s revealed to us, through the hushed whispering of the bachelorette party behind us, that the mild-mannered man at the bar pulled a knife out at a fellow patron. The six-inch pocket knife impromptu show-and-tell was the piece-de-resistance to the (clearly gripping) story he was re-enacting, and the bartender took the whole switchblade-at-the-bar thing a bit too seriously.
“Who hasn’t flashed a weapon as a joke?”
“Yeah, that’s why I love my low-cut shirts.”
We found the ever-elusive bottom of bottomless brunch after the waitress cut us off after what may or may not have been six pitchers of mimosas. Forty forgotten film photos later, I found myself suntanning, thinking about how I’d fare if I moved to the Sunshine state. No matter how eclectic a place seems to look from outside the fishbowl, there’s always a level of conformity you have to follow. In New York, the dress code is black. In Miami, you’re expected to be colorful– but the same kind of colorful as everyone else. If you move, you don’t change yourself, you just change location. I guess I’d be equally distracted by the prospect of suntanning on the beach as I am by the prospect of a gander around the West Village when I’ve got work to finish.
Becky
10 hour drive from Miami to Seaside.
Seaside, FL.
Seaside Square
I’ve been going to Seaside, Florida since I was eight years old.As my parents did construction on our house there or other miscellaneous things, I found myself being the only kid there during low-tourist season. I would spend hours riding my bike, reading in the book store, painting pottery, and swimming in the community pools. Seaside is very safe, so I was able to do my own thing all the time without my parents worrying. It became a sanctuary for little me to just explore a town, my own interests, and whatever fantasies I came up with throughout my day to keep myself entertained.
As I’ve gotten older, Seaside has become more and more popular. I spent middle school spring breaks riding my bike with my friends, buying and eating cookie dough without my mom finding out (sorry mom), and having late-night chats on the beach pavilions. Throughout high school and now college, a similar pattern has followed me.
The nice thing about Seaside is that it’s a tradition-based town: most things stay the same. So even though I can’t control getting older, I can still walk through the town and feel like time hasn’t moved. I see where my friend and I did our “morning rounds” of eating donuts after climbing up a tree; or where I would try to practice my gymnastics skills for the future Olympics (don’t ask how that’s going); or the pool where I spent hours pretending to be a mermaid and doing underwater flips that I could never do on land. Even after bringing multiple friend groups and multiple versions of myself to the small town, it still houses my little eight year old self, riding a bike somewhere and memorizing house names.
Alisia
18 hour drive to New York City.
FLORIDA, ALABAMA, GEORGIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, DC, DELAWARE, NEW JERSEY, NEW YORK
I’VE STARTED SIGNING OFF MY EMAILS WITH “CHEERS.” IS IT PROFESSIONAL? NO. HAVE I GOTTEN ANY COMMENTS ABOUT MY LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM? ALSO NO. GO BUCK WILD WITH YOUR SIGNATURE BECAUSE LIFE SHOULD NOT LACK WHIMSY.
EVERY DAY I THINK OF THE STEVE MARTIN QUOTE FROM HIS 2007 NEW YORKER ESSAY “IN THE BIRD CAGE” — “THROUGH THE YEARS, I HAVE LEARNED THAT THERE IS NO HARM IN CHARGING ONESELF UP WITH DELUSIONS BETWEEN MOMENTS OF VALID INSPIRATION.”
I FIND THAT DEEP DIVING INSPIRATIONAL MAGAZINE ARCHIVES HAS SUPPORTED MY FOUR HOUR DAYDREAM WALKS. THAT’S WHAT MY BRAIN WORM SAID, ANYWAY…
Alisia Houghtaling (and her crutches)
I HOPE TO NEVER DESCRIBE MY PLANS AS BORING. IF I DO, IT’S A POOR REFLECTION OF MY TRUE CHARACTER. PERHAPS A TIRED, GOTHIC SPIRIT HAS POSSESSED ME. IN THE CASE THIS HAPPENS, TAKE ME OUT ANYWAY.
Sunbleacht 